Welcome to the Musselburgh Meeting Centre Workshop!

Allan welcomed everyone on behalf of the Musselburgh Meeting Centre Members and expressed their delight to welcome so many people to learn more about the Meeting Centre model and wished everyone an enjoyable morning

Brenda outlined the plan for the day and introduced our guest speakers. Shamin Akhtar is a great friend to the Meeting Centre and Chair of the East Lothian Integration Joint Board which integrates health and social care for adults round East Lothian. They fund and are really supportive of the Meeting Centre.

Shamin reminded us it was Carers Week and she thanked carers for their contribution and the difference they make. during She congratulated Members and the team on the Meeting Centre’s first birthday. Reflecting on the importance of bringing people and communities together, Shamin described the Musselburgh Meeting Centre as a partnership of equals, where different skills, experiences and knowledge are valued and shared. In just one year, the Centre has already made a difference to people’s lives, inspired other communities and shown what can be achieved when people work together. Describing the Centre as a place of joy and hope, Shamin thanked members for creating an opportunity to share the Meeting Centre experience and give others a view from the inside.

Our second guest, Graham Galloway has been instrumental in bringing Meeting Centres to Scotland. Graham is interim CEO [now CEO] of Meeting Centres Scotland. Graham reflected on discovering the Meeting Centre approach in 2017, describing it as a “lightbulb moment” that showed how communities can create spaces where people living with dementia can support, empower and learn alongside one another. He explained that Meeting Centres are places where everyone is equal, everyone has a role to play, and people are encouraged to remain active, connected and involved in community life.

Celebrating the growth of Meeting Centres across Scotland, Graham said that the best way to understand the approach was to experience it for yourself. Looking around the room, he suggested that today’s workshop showed exactly what a Meeting Centre looks and feels like in practice. Designed and led by members, the event offered a real experience of the Meeting Centre and the special ingredients that help people flourish. Through the displays, conversations and activities created by members, guests were given a genuine “taste” of the Meeting Centre and the ingredients that make it such a special place.

The Musselburgh Meeting Centre – Our Secret Recipe

Evelyn explained that members had designed the workshop to share what the Musselburgh Meeting Centre means to them and to give guests a genuine experience of the Centre from the inside. Members wanted people to understand not only what happens at a Meeting Centre, but what difference it makes and the ingredients that help people feel connected, valued and involved.
What followed wasn’t a presentation about Meeting Centres. It was an opportunity to meet the people who make the Musselburgh Meeting Centre what it is.

Before the recipe was shared, people were asked to share the ingredients they think make Meeting Centre Soup. The room bubbled with conversations and filled with laughter. Everyone added their ingredients for Meeting Centre Soup, creating a recipe full of good things to feed minds, bodies and souls. This word cloud heart is made of the ingredients people shared on sticky notes.

Allan then shared the Members’ own recipe for Meeting Centre Soup. Can I make this poem stand out and look like a piece of paper etc?

The Special Musselburgh Meeting Centre Recipe

Ingredients:
A cupful of Jennifer’s creativeness
2 cupfuls of humour
A pinch of captured photos of happiness from Ian
A roomful of continued love and friendship
1 beautiful outdoor space to share and calm
A roomful of full tummies from Dominika’s cooking
A cupful of respect and understanding
A pinch of jokes and poems from Allan
A scoop of pride in all we have achieved and are still achieving.
A bucketful of expertise in the indoor Kurling
A handful of willingness to try new things.
A splash of sharing experiences with young people
A cup of butter icing of Fiona to sandwich the ingredients together

To Prepare:

Bring together 12 people living with dementia and facilitators. Place them in a warm, safe welcoming place in the heart of the community.

Add respect, understanding and care along with sparkling conversation, tea and cake and stir slowly.

As the mixture begins to grow add some favourite activities: tri-shaws, river walks, baking and painting and then mix briskly

Finally add in links with our community: young people from the Grammar school, Musselburgh Museum and its lovely volunteers, the Hollies for lunch, and our outings to art galleries, the races, Merryhatton and the Kelpies and mix thoroughly.

Bake at a gentle heat twice a week till cooked through and ENJOY !

As we digested the poem, John explained that Musselburgh Meeting Centre has the right best quality ingredients. But what really makes a great soup is how ingredients are mixed together – the baker’s skill.

The Meeting Centre Recipe in Verse

Faye has been supporting the Meeting Centre from the earliest of days. Among her many talents, she’s an amazing poet. Faye has made the Members’ recipe into a poem. We felt it captured the heart and soul of the Meeting Centre and wanted to share it in full.

Faye’s Poem: Our recipe for success!!

Ingredients
Before we bake this cake for you
We’ll tell you what we need,
Ingredients you won’t find in a shop
Because they’re special indeed!
To begin, you’ll need a roomful of love
A cup of friendship and respect too,
You’ll also need a cup of understanding
To cope with all that is new.
Then add two cups of good humour
With a willingness to ‘have a go’,
A big scoop of pride in what you do
As you feel your confidence grows.
Take a cup of Jennifer’s creativeness
And a good measure of Dominika’s baking,
Mix them up with some jokes from Allan
Then soon with laughter you’ll be shaking!!
To calm yourself down, just go outside
To your beautiful, peaceful, green space,
Where you can sit quietly or have a chat
Or just enjoy that lovely, warm space.
Take Ian’s measuring jug full of photographs
That capture how busy and happy you’ve been,
Add two spoonful’s of the young people
Whose game of curling was a joy to be seen!
To finish off this caring cake
This will be as light as a feather,
You’ll spread on some of Fiona’s butter icing
That will hold it all together.
Preparation
Now that you have all the ingredients
Just find a safe, cosy place to prepare,
With us dozen caring folk
With warmth we all like to share.
Add respect, understanding and chatter
Mix into the cake, nice and slow,
Have a wee cup of tea or coffee
And watch our mixture grow.
Add in our various activities
Painting, baking and river waks too,
Remember to include the tri-shaw trips
Then stir the mixture through and through.
Our cake is shared in the community
With Grammar School pupils and Museum staff,
They know about us at the Race Course
A great day out when we had a good laugh!
Twice a week we will be baking our cake
At a low and gentle heat,
That’s a taste you’ll want to have over again
A recipe that’s long-lasting and sweet.

© Faye Rolland 2024

Everyone agreed that the Member’s recipe and Faye’s poem captured the heart and soul of the Meeting Centre. Thank you Faye for this lovely gift.

Time to chat and mingle – mixing our ingredients

Having agreed on our ingredients, we mingled. Like a great soup, we allowed time for ingredients to blend into our soup. It was a chance to relax, chat to people or look round at photos, artwork, poems that Members chose to give us that so important Meeting Centre flavour. Mingling and mixing we got to know each other. There was a lot of laughter, a lot of connecting and a lot of caring and sharing.

Coming together – what have we created?

Our final session for the day was a chance for everyone to have their say and to look what we had created together.

“Everybody’s smiling, that’s what we need more of – happiness”

Cathy, Musselburgh Health and WellBeing group

“… everybody [at the Meeting Centre] gets on very well with each other, everyone cares about each other. If any of the Members are feeling not so well or don’t come, the next time you see them you’re asking how are you feeling today? And its good to see them when they’re back. Things like that. [It’s a] really very friendly place and everyone cares for each other very much.”

Elizabeth, Meeting Centre.

“This group and others are very much part of the antidote to the way society has gone. [There’s] huge problems with loneliness and isolation and deprivation and not just a money crisis, it all piles on top. Society should work like this. We need this to overflow into every area so Members can teach everyone else just how to relate to people and really love one another, be kind to one another.”

Cher, Musselburgh Councillor

“Can I say something controversial? I think we should all work towards the day when every Meeting Centre has its own premises, which means we can control everything that goes on in the Centre. We can invite anyone we want into the Centre. We can let out the premises and make some money out of it. In every way we can be a unit that people can respond to rather than people say ‘oh they meet twice a week in a church hall’. That’s very good but not what it should be. It will cost a lot of money but we should be asking for it. It’s a political issue but we should aim for it.”

John, Dementia Positive

“We are delighted to open our premises for the meeting place and …. As a church we’re ambitious for the time the Meeting Centre will outgrow us and be somewhere else. The other thing, being in that space, the Meeting Centre has discovered the things that are important to you, that direct what you want from an independent self-standing building. We’re delighted to be able to facilitate that. Musselburgh Meeting Centre has a very particular feel and the outside space is really important. You might not have picked that up at the start. … this preparation time has given you time to find out who you are and what matters to you and we’re delighted to be part of that.”

Leslie, St Andrews High Church

“Musselburgh Area Partnership has been involved right at the start and we see the Meeting Centre as part of our community. There are members of the Area Partnership here. The question is, is there anything else you would like to see us doing? What do you think would make a difference? We’d also like you to help develop our Area Plan, to give us some action points. We would love to support you.”

Janice, Musselburgh Health and WellBeing Group

“Musselburgh has supported the Centre unbelievably well. The young people from the Grammar School volunteered, not knowing what they were going to get into. The Members didn’t know! All these young people coming down – so supportive. Musselburgh racecourse when we asked about complimentary tickets and when we went there ….. Everyone has been so supportive in Musselburgh. My wife has been lost on the High Street and has been helped home. We really appreciate the support we get from Musselburgh.”

John, Musselburgh Meeting Centre

“One thing we could do with is our own bus. Can someone supply us? The council, something like that would be really good, our own bus on tap.”

Ian, Meeting Centre.

“The Centre has a space for carers to get together. This is important. [Being a carer] can be traumatic. It’s important to have time to listen to each other. When we get together we have lots to say. Thank you for that, I particularly value it. Thanks to Carers of East Lothian and Anne from Open Arms Carers.”

John, Meeting Centre.

Graham told us that ‘Friendship’ is an essential ingredient and the Meeting Centre approach can work anywhere, even if we don’t have our own premises.

Graham’s advice was

“Don’t wait for the building – start now!“

Graham explained that outdoor space and a garden are valuable ingredients for a Meeting Centre. “Do you grow tatties?” Allan asked, prompting hoots of laughter from members and friends. Fiona then shared the story of the Musselburgh Meeting Centre’s tatties.

“We wanted to be self-sufficient, so we started growing potatoes in bags. It’s been like bringing up a baby! I’ve been out there, tending them, covering them with soil, reading the book. Everyone is getting fed up with me saying “Let’s go check on the tatties and see what they’re doing”. We have have 2 flowers… we’re getting there.”

Fiona, Musselburgh Meeting Centre

A round of applause and lots of laughter for the tatties!

Thank yous and fond farewells

We’d spent a lovely morning enjoying the warmth and friendship of the Musselburgh Meeting Centre. Evelyn thanked everyone for coming along and making the workshop a success. Members hoped we’d had a good Meeting Centre experience today and had a sense of the support and strength Members get from coming to the Musselburgh Meeting Centre.
Evelyn thanked Fiona and the Meeting Centre team for all they do. The Centre couldn’t happen without their hard work and commitment. Thank you Fiona, Dominika, Jennifer, April, Faye, Norman and Sandiann, you created something really special and encouraged members to share the Meeting Centre experience.

Time for lunch. Pat rang the lunch bell and Dominika and Faye welcomed us to a table of delights they’d been preparing. Thanks to Faye and Dominika for wonderful hospitality and making sure our bodies and minds were well looked after and making the day really special. And to The Filling Station for a very very yummy lunch

Members hoped their guests would leave with a better understanding of what the Meeting Centre means to them. Looking around the room at the conversations, connections, laughter and new ideas being shared, it felt like they achieved exactly that.

October 26, 2026

Welcome to the Musselburgh Meeting Centre Workshop!

The Musselburgh Meeting Centre – Our Secret Recipe